Tag: OMN

Rebuilding Radical, Grassroots Media

For too long, our digital spaces have been hijacked by corporate interests, turning the internet into a surveillance-driven wasteland where control, profit, and censorship push aside community, useful creativity, and communities autonomy. As a first step to reclaim our media and communication networks, we need to step away from the #mainstreaming mess and build self-organized, decentralized alternatives that resist capture.

Creating and supporting decentralized codebase like the #OMN, we have already taken the first step on this with the #Fediverse for a community already exist outside the old walled gardens of the #dotcons, #Facebook and #Twitter. This is the path of encouraging open protocols that allow interconnectivity without corporate gatekeepers. It’s challenging opaque decision-making by insisting on community-driven governance. Our current problem is that our tools aren’t built with openness and transparency, thus they will always be vulnerable to co-option and corporate capture.

We don’t need permission from corporations, #NGOs, or governments to organize, publish, and communicate, we need tools, tactics, and commitment. To reclaim radical politics, we need to build and experiment with our own independent media infrastructure, like the #indymediaback project. Engage in direct action rather than waiting for institutions to change from within, to encourage self-sufficiency in media production, hosting, and distribution.

Refocusing on #DIY activism, with practice over theory, on this path the grassroots movements of the past succeeded because they prioritized action over academic theorizing. Today, many “activists”, if they have not completely sold out, are trapped in performative online discourse instead of real-world engagement.

    On this path, the is built in challenge to change the dominant narratives of corporate capture & liberal pacification. The mainstream narrative is designed to disempower us, keeping us passive while corporate and state power consolidates control. It tells us, “You need the platforms to reach people.” (No, we build our own.) “You can change the system from within.” (No, it co-opts and neuters movements.) “Decentralization is too hard, just use what exists.” (No, that keeps us trapped.)

      The #NGO-driven “activism” of today plays into liberal pacification, where radical demands are diluted into polite requests for reform. Instead, we must amplify disruptive, independent, and autonomous voices. The paths exist, but will we walk them? We know what needs to be done, decentralize—Build networks outside corporate control. Organize—Move beyond performative social media activism. Disrupt—Challenge power instead of negotiating with it.

      The tools, knowledge, and communities already exist, the only question is, are we finally ready to act?

      The problem with centralized data

      The hidden centralization crisis in #openweb tech, and how #OMN fixes It. One of the often overlooked issue in #openweb technology is that our data remains dangerously centralized. Even in supposedly decentralized systems, vast amounts of critical information still rely on a handful of corporate-owned data centres. This fragile setup means that a single accident, political upheaval, corporate shutdown, or environmental catastrophe (#climatechaos) could wipe out entire digital histories overnight.

      Despite the promise of decentralization, much of our infrastructure still depends on centralized hosting, leaving communities vulnerable to erasure. The illusion of permanence is just that, an illusion. The question isn’t if data loss will happen, but when.

      The #OMN path to building a resilient web, is a radically different approach, ensuring that content remains accessible even in the face of system failures. Instead of relying on fragile, monolithic storage solutions, it embraces redundancy, simplicity, and resilience through the #4opens principles.

      Here’s how #OMN keeps the web truly open and sustainable, redundant, grassroots network-stored content. Data is distributed across multiple independent nodes rather than locked into a single corporate-controlled server. This prevents mass erasure and ensures that no single entity controls access to vital information.

      #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) design, instead of complex, failure-prone tech, #OMN emphasizes simplicity and usability. The system is built to survive disruptions by keeping technology accessible, lightweight, and easy to replicate. No reliance on traditional backups, when a node fails (which it inevitably will), there’s no need for massive backup operations. Simply boot up a new node, input your hashtags and user info, and the network automatically reconstructs as much data as possible. This lossy-but-functional recovery method ensures continuity without unnecessary complexity.

      Scalability through home hosting, the future of a resilient #openweb lies in decentralized, grassroots hosting rather than reliance on corporate servers. Home hosting allows people and communities to reclaim control, expanding the network organically without falling into the traps of commercialization.

      Reboot the #OMN, follows the #4opens, the corporate web is fragile because it’s designed to serve profit, not people. The #openweb was never meant to be centralized, and yet, the forces of capitalism, surveillance, and convenience have led to its current vulnerable state. If we want a web that survives revolutions, #climatechaos, and the collapse of tech giants, we need to reboot the #openweb and commit to the #4opens:

      • Open Data – Data should be accessible and free from corporate control.
      • Open Source – Technology should be transparent and modifiable by anyone.
      • Open Standards – Systems should communicate and work together, not be locked into proprietary silos.
      • Open Process – Development should be done in public, ensuring accountability and community-driven decision-making.

      The native path isn’t bigger servers or better encryption, it’s resilient, people-powered infrastructure that is based on trust, usability, and decentralization over corporate control.

      Reboot the web. Build for resilience. Follow the #4opens.

      VisionOnTV: A Lost Future of Grassroots Video

      Nearly 20 years ago, we built something radical. #VisionOnTV wasn’t just another platform, it was a #4opens movement. A bold attempt to break free from corporate-controlled media and give people the tools to create and share activist-driven, alternative television. We weren’t waiting for permission; we were building the future we wanted to see.

      Before #YouTube became the advertising surveillance monolith it is today, we had a different vision. One where video wasn’t just disposable clickbait, but a tool for social change. The project was to curated hard-hitting documentaries, radical comedy, underground music, and voices that #mainstreaming #TV wouldn’t touch. Unlike the corporate “content farms”, our focus was on nurturing quality grassroots storytelling, ensuring activist media was just as compelling as anything on TV.

      Technically, we were ahead of the curve. Using #Bittorrent for distribution, #Miro for viewing, and Creative Commons licensing, VisionOnTV se out to build a decentralized media network, a vision that today’s #PeerTube is still catching up to. We worked for a world where people weren’t just passive consumers, but active participants in the media they watched.

      Of course, the internet went in a different direction. The rise of #dotcons pulled people into walled gardens where visibility was dictated by algorithms, engagement was hijacked by ads, and “independent creators” had to play the platform game or disappear. VisionOnTV stood against that tide, but history didn’t side with us.

      Yet, the need for a project like VisionOnTV has never gone away. The corporate grip on media is suffocating, activist voices are still being marginalized, and the fight for an open, people-powered internet continues. Maybe it’s time to dig through the compost of the past and see what new seeds we can plant.

      What do you remember about VisionOnTV? And what lessons should we carry forward into today’s decentralized media struggles?

      #IndymediaBack #OMN #4opens #NothingNew

      People, community, the long struggle between the #openweb and #dotcons

      This is a mess that has been clear to see for 20 years, but people keep falling into the same traps instead of stepping off the cycle of control. We had something, we lost it, and we are still refusing to face why.

      Let’s use #Failbook as a practical example of a monster that devours our dreams, fifteen years ago, the writing was already on the wall, #failbook and the #dotcons would eat everything. It wasn’t some grand conspiracy, just basic power and control dynamics. People knew this. They saw the cage being built around them, yet walked in willingly. Why? Because in the small picture, it was “easier” to stay inside than to step outside. They thought they were users, but they were being used. Every attempt to “fix” #failbook, the endless ethical tech debates, the “kinder, fairer” alternatives, the #NGO-funded projects promising “a better social network”, misses the core issue: You don’t fix a monster. You stop feeding it and walk away.

      This is where the religious metaphor fits, people don’t want atheism (the #openweb), they just want a nicer god (ethical #dotcons). They still kneel before centralized power, just hoping for a softer whip. We need to stop worshipping the digital feudal lords and start building something else entirely. One path is to reboot the original #openweb

      To do this we need some social history: The #openweb was murdered, and no one faced the consequences, we need a truth and reconciliation process for what happened to the #openweb. Why? Because people refuse to learn from history, and that means they keep making the same mistakes. Look at the waves of migration from open to closed over the last two decades:

      • The rise of blogs and open publishing (2000s) → The pull into social media walled gardens (2010s)
      • The rise of the federated web (2000s, early 2010s) → The collapse into corporate-owned silos (late 2010s, 2020s)
      • The rebirth of the Fediverse (Mastodon, PeerTube, Lemmy, etc.) → Now being co-opted by NGOs and #mainstreaming interests

      Each time, the excuse is different, but the result is the same, we hand over power, they take control, we lose everything. Until we face the fact that we let this happen, that we were complicit, this cycle won’t stop. Every time we fail to call it what it is, the blood-letting/stains keep coming back.

      The problem with #NGO and Co-op models, people love to push the same “solutions” that failed before. Pushing a voluntary project into a hard “not-for-profit” structure kills it, this happened again and again. Look at #indymedia. It worked because it was messy, decentralized, built from the ground up. Run by volunteers, not controlled by a central authority. Rooted in the activist base, not an #NGO-funded agenda. Then came the push to “formalize” it, and what happened?

      • Funding fights, bureaucracy, infighting.
      • Projects being hijacked or forced into rigid structures.
      • Most of the co-op/NGO media projects collapsed.

      There is nothing wrong with people building not-for-profit media, but stop forcing voluntary activism into structures that will kill it. The old mistakes aren’t new solutions. They are just mistakes waiting to happen again.

      The #OMN and the need for diversity of strategies, the #OMN is built on a simple idea, diversity of strategies is strength. We need:

      • Commercial models where they work.
      • Not-for-profit structures where they make sense.
      • Voluntary activism as the foundation.

      Then the basic #4opens of them linking to each other. What we don’t need is people using their own narrow worldview as a #BLOCK on other approaches in the guise of “helping”. This happens all the time, with the #NGO crowd that wants everything formalized, structured, and professionalized, they see grassroots messiness as a problem. The geeks want everything to be purely about the tech, ignoring the social and political realities. The politicos want everything to align with their ideology, even when that means excluding actual working solutions. These proxy fights kill the meany projects before they even start.

      The solution is not ideological purity, it’s pragmatic diversity. If we want to break the cycle, we need to stop repeating the same mistakes, stop blocking each other, link and start building with what we have #KISS

      One path to this, that needs support https://opencollective.com/open-media-network

      The light in this is the #Fediverse, otherwise the last decade in tech has been a complete dead end. We’ve watched the same old mistakes play out, layering more “solutions” onto the #geekproblem without ever questioning the foundation. Instead of building trust, we’ve been sold “security” wrapped in fear, reinforcing the same toxic cycles that keep us locked in place.

      The #OMN projects build from the #Fediverse and #openweb reboot to break from this. They are about real empowerment, shifting power by growing trust rather than control. If we keep repeating the same mistakes, we’re just feeding the #deathcult, accelerating the collapse. The #fashernista and #encryptionist obsessions, instead of opening paths to change, have become blind alleyways leading to catastrophe. We need to step back, reassess, and build differently, before the coming decades bring suffering on a scale we’ve barely begun to grasp.

      Trump and the tools of the old world order

      An example of this is The United States Agency for International Development (#USAID) which was presented as a humanitarian force for economic and social development worldwide. However, its origins and operations paint a different much darker path, of geopolitical manoeuvring and #neoliberal hegemony over the last 40 years. Now, with the hard shift to the right, USAID is being gutted, alongside other long-standing institutions of the U.S. “liberal” global order.

      Origins and the Cold War Agenda, founded in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy, USAID was pushed into view as a means to promote global development. In truth, it was the normal Cold War weapon of this era, countering Soviet influence under the guise of humanitarian assistance. The Foreign Assistance Act centralized foreign aid and explicitly tied it to U.S. geopolitical strategy. This was done in the open, Lyndon B. Johnson admitted that food aid was leveraged to redirect recipient countries’ spending toward military and security cooperation with the U.S.

      A very easy to see example of this was the Food for Peace program, which used grain shipments to coerce nations into rejecting Soviet assistance. With famine relief being politicized as a tool for control, India, for instance, had to tone down its criticism of the U.S. war in Vietnam before receiving necessary aid.

      Covert operations, as a soft power arm of the #CIA, despite meany of these institutions being branded as independent agencies. In 1973, Senator Ted Kennedy directly questioned whether USAID was involved in Southeast Asian covert operations. The answer was a resounding yes.

      • In Guatemala, during the genocide of the Mayan people in the 1970s, USAID funded and trained police forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations against leftist movements.
      • In Uruguay, USAID’s Dan Mitrione personally trained security forces in torture techniques, including electroshock and psychological warfare.
      • In the 1980s, USAID facilitated “non-lethal aid” to Contra forces in Nicaragua, effectively ensuring they remained combat-ready despite congressional restrictions on military support.
      • In Peru, USAID financially supported dictator Alberto Fujimori’s forced sterilization program, targeting 300,000 Indigenous women under the guise of population control.

      Perhaps the most infamous case was Afghanistan, where #USAID provided millions to the University of Nebraska to develop textbooks filled with anti-Soviet propaganda, using religious rhetoric to radicalize young Mujahideen fighters. The blowback in globe mess from these operations is still felt today, a compleat shit storm of mess making.

      With the fall of the USSR, these old #coldwar institutions pivoted towards more #neoliberal capitalist economic restructuring, pushing deregulation, privatization, and free-market reforms in post-Soviet states. Democracy promotion was a pretext, but only for “democracies” that aligned with U.S. corporate interests. Any “independence” risked financial punishment or outright regime change operations. This was a disaster for much of the region, which we are seeing play out in the Russia Ukraine war.

      Post-9/11: The security state expansion saw budgets balloon, increasing by 70% between 2001 and 2003. The agency became more directly aligned with military operations, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. In these war zones, USAID’s stated mission of “nation-building” was a flimsy cover for consolidating U.S. control over shattered economies. The real work of development, tackling poverty and fostering stability, was an afterthought compared to the securing American military dominance in the era.

      The left, right mess is on repeat

      Trump’s “Draining the Swamp” what is this about and what will be likely outcomes: Oligarchy pushing #neoliberal chaos vs managed hegemony, These institutions were a tool of imperial control, but their removal creates a vacuum. The likely outcome is that private corporations and unaccountable privatised military contractors will increasingly step in to replace state-controlled influence operations.

      We might see the growth of right-wing Isolationism with Trump’s America First rhetoric leading to a defacto disengaging from directly shaping international development, but not from coercion. Economic sanctions and direct intervention (as seen in Venezuela) remain the preferred tactics for managing the mess these polices create, there is a very dangerous feedback loop here.

      There is a shift to cruder authoritarian paths, instead of “soft power” the replacement actors and institutions are based on direct strongman alliances, reinforcing a world order based on brute force rather than, shadowed economic manipulation.

      What should the progressive left do? Rather than mourning the loss of USAID and other Cold War institutions, the left should take this as an opportunity to redefine internationalism. Instead of #neoliberal “aid” programs that uphold global inequality, we should be pushing for:

      • #KISS grassroots solidarity: Development led by those directly affected, not dictated by the #nastyfew imperial wonabe powers. A seed of this is the #OGB project.
      • Decentralized cooperative structures to replace hierarchical and state-controlled #NGOs with open, transparent, and accountable networks. A seed of this is the #OMN projects.
      • Reclaiming media from the #nastyfew Influence and control: With US funded media outlets shutting down, now is the time to push for independent, radical journalism free from state agenda. A seed of this is the #indymediaback project.

      What we need to focus on is opposing the #deathcult in all forms, whether #neoliberal soft power or #Trumpist strongman tactics, which obviously both serve the interests of the #nastyfew class. A real #KISS alternative means dismantling or mediating global #capitalism itself. #Trump’s destruction of the old world institutions is another step in shifting power from one faction of the #nastyfew to another. The question that matters isn’t whether these institutions should exist, it’s what we build in their place, and how we gain the power to become the change and challenge to do this #KISS

      The left, right mess is on repeat

      This is at the heart of the contradictions and confusion in the political landscape today. The liberal and left muddle, where elements of economic populism are shared across ideological divides, is something we’ve seen before, especially in the 1930s, when fascist movements co-opted working-class grievances while pushing reactionary nationalism.

      Lets looks at history #Bannon, like the Nazi Röhm long before him, plays a dangerous game by mobilizing working-class anger against neoliberal “elites” but steering it toward nationalism rather than genuine class struggle. The key difference is that Bannon, unlike the decedent Röhm, seems aware of how these power games play out, he’s studied history and applies these lessons to manipulate movements in favour of the #nastyfew being pushed into power. The economic critiques overlap with parts of the left, but his solutions (corporate nationalism, authoritarianism) are the very real danger. The question is: how do we make these distinctions clear to people trapped in the populist right-wing narratives? We need a strategy to cut through the confusion:

      • Recentre on Class Struggle (#KISS #classwar) by striping away the nationalist framing and refocus on economic realities: who actually benefits from policies? Who holds power? Expose how right-wing populists co-opt class anger but always serve capital in the end.
      • Expose the fake anti-establishment, Bannon claims to fight “globalists,” but his solution is just another form of “elite” rule, corporate fascism, not worker control. The “anti-tech bro” stance is surface-level; fascists historically seek state-corporate fusion, not any real accountability.
      • Build a networked radical alternative, left populism needs to be clearer, bolder, and independent of liberal NGO-driven paths and politics. We need grassroots led movements like the #OMN
      • Break through the media fog, #Mainstreaming and #dotcons push right-wing populism by treating it as an acceptable part of discourse rather than a threat. Use independent media (like #indymediaback) to reframe the conversation on more clear class terms.

      The 21st Century Struggle is about climate, class, and collapse. This isn’t just about fighting fascism, it’s about surviving #climatechaos and social collapse. The solutions that emerge now will shape the next century. If we allow the right to set the terms, we end up in corporate #feudalism. If we organize and push a real alternative, there’s still a chance to shift to something better.

      How do we sharpen this message so it cuts through the noise? What channels do you see as effective? We need working change and challenge #KISS

      Trump is more Italian #fascism than German fascism
      Trump and the tools of the old world order

      The Fediverse is a step

      Let’s do a brief breakdown of the core structural problems of centralized platforms and how they warp social interaction. This ties directly into the #geekproblem, #4opens, and the broader issues of #dotcons and digital feudalism. Key issues:

      • Centralization breeds #feudalism. One big virtual server means a few people have all the power while the rest are serfs.
      • “Ease of use” is often a lie. It just means the real costs are hidden, either pushed onto users (moderation, unpaid labour) or externalized (data exploitation, environmental costs).
      • Advertising poisons everything. It’s a moral hazard because platforms optimize for ad revenue, not people’s or community well-being, leading to manipulation and surveillance.
      • Moderation cannot be outsourced. Centralized platforms fail at moderation because they have to apply feudal control instead of organic, community-led governance.
      • As it’s used now, the algorithm is not your friend. It reinforces biases, kills discovery, and turns users into dopamine addicts, making them less able to engage meaningfully.
      • Buying influence kills real communities. When orgs and brands dominate a space, the authentic social fabric collapses.

      The #openweb Alternative? The #4opens and #OMN offer a radically different path, where trust replaces control, decentralized, transparent networks let communities govern themselves. Organic discovery beats algorithms, instead of being trapped in echo chambers, people explore through human curation and paths.

      The Fediverse is a step, but it’s still struggling with #geekproblem governance issues. The real challenge is breaking out of the social #postmodernist loop and building solid, trust-based, grassroots media and social spaces to shape the change challenge we need.

      The #dotcons #mainstreaming internet is designed to pacify and extract, we need to build for resistance and renewal #KISS path is native #openweb

      Security is a social problem first, a tech problem second

      The #geekproblem locks us into hardcoded #feudalism, power structures baked into the code itself, with server admins as kings, users as serfs. To break this, we need to build trust-based paths first and let security emerge from that, rather than bolting it on after the fact.
      What actually needs to be secured?

      • The account → If the instance isn’t secure, the account isn’t either.
      • The activity feed → The flows need to be secured to prevent manipulation.
      • The credit (data attribution) → Maybe hashing media objects?

      But rather than obsessing over client-server security, we accept that trust must be social, not just cryptographic. #4opens keeps security honest, openness exposes flaws so they can be fixed.

      The #encryptionists problem, is that they act like encryption is the solution to everything, but in reality, most people’s security is already broken at the device level, old phones, proprietary blobs, built by #dotcons. If you encrypt your messages, but the recipient’s device is compromised, what’s the point?

      Open vs Closed

      • Closed breeds monsters—plots happen in the dark, and truth is impossible to judge.
      • Open exposes monsters—they might still exist, but they can be tripped up and countered.

      The #Fediverse, #OMN, and #openweb need messy, trust-based networks, not fantasies of absolute control. Security isn’t about paranoia, it’s about transparency. The takeaway, we can’t solve security in a world where most people’s devices and networks are already compromised. Instead of a head-in-the-sand approach, we embrace the mess, trust the process, and build open systems that expose threats instead of pretending to eliminate them #KISS

      Yes, it’s a feedback loop, geeks build the infrastructure of our digital world, but their worldview is trapped inside that same infrastructure. The #geekproblem is the inability to step outside their own frame of reference, even when the failures of their approach are pointed out hundreds of times over a decade.

      They think in technical solutions to social problems, and because those solutions look logical to them, they assume the problem is fixed, even when it clearly isn’t. Worse, they don’t understand why people reject their fixes, so they blame the users, not their own blind spots.

      What does the #geekproblem do?

      • It pushes crossover left/right tech governance that lacks any grounding in real-world politics or social movements.
      • It gets stuck in endless debates where nothing ever changes, because geeks can’t see what’s outside their own mental models.
      • It defaults to #postmodernism, where everything is relative, nothing is real, and any attempt to define truth is dismissed as controlling “them”.
      • It refuses to accept accountability because the tools they build don’t support it.

      Example of the #geekproblem? We have already pointed to #indymedia, where geek-led decisions undermined the very social movements the tech was supposed to support. And we see it today in Fediverse governance, where geeks cling to process without understanding power.

      The #4opens exposes these problems, but geeks still can’t see them. Why? Because openness forces social accountability, and geek culture resists that. The way forward? We need diverse voices in digital spaces, not just geek monocultures. The Fediverse, #OMN, and other #openweb projects need balance, geeks build the tools, but they shouldn’t be the ones defining the social governance of those tools.

      So yeah, go round in circles with geeks all you want, but until they acknowledge there’s a problem, nothing changes. Instead of fighting them, we should be building outside their bubble, bringing in people who have some understanding of social processes, and making the #geekproblem a public discussion.

      Because if they won’t see the problem, we’ll just have to work around them somehow, ideas please?

      This is how we compost failure into growth, instead of repeating mistakes

      We do need strong metaphors, gardens, compost, pollination, is all about creating ecosystems of hope, rather than rigid, industrialized movements that always collapse under their own weight. Instead of chasing the big factory model of change, we need 100s of small, interconnected projects, cross-pollinating, sharing what works and what doesn’t.

      The straitjacket of fear is real, and the left has been caught in it too, chasing purity, reacting rather than acting, and often forgetting to build. Memory holes swallow past successes, leaving us to reinvent the wheel over and over.

      We need librarians, historians, and grassroots media makers, not just to archive, but to crystallize past wins into living, usable knowledge. This is how we compost failure into growth, instead of repeating mistakes.

      • Right-wing ideologies are based on fear.
      • Left-wing ideologies hope.

      This is why grassroots media matters. The #OMN, #indymediaback, and radical digital commons aren’t just about publishing, they’re about seeding, nurturing, and spreading a counter-narrative of hope and action.

      Let’s get the bees buzzing, and not just in isolated hives, but across a network of thriving gardens.

      For the ones who can’t follow metaphors – let’s try lots of small left projects and document what dose and does not work.

      A shift back to radical values and paths

      Much of academia post-1990s is just a shadow of the #deathcult, stripped of radicalism and repackaged into careerist, bureaucratic loops. It became another self-referential path, detached from real world struggles. The privatization of knowledge through paywalled journals, corporate funding, and NGO capture made sure of this.

      The same thing happened with #FOSS and #opensource, once about radical openness, it was watered down when organizing shifted to closed chat systems and corporate-friendly platforms. We lost the #openprocess that made early public archives powerful.

      Then you have, Modern Art, once revolutionary, was quickly absorbed into the cultural arm of the #deathcult, turning radical expression into a commodity for the #nastyfew. It’s the same cycle over and over:

      • A movement starts as a real challenge to power.
      • It gains momentum.
      • Power co-opts it, waters it down, and sells it back to us.

      People will keep doing stupid things, that’s inevitable. The job is to call it out, push better paths, and make sure they don’t repeat the same mistakes. It’s not glamorous, and it won’t get you applause, but that’s how real social change works.

      The cat meowing, the #fashionistas, whether intentionally or not, keep blocking the left’s paths by turning everything into aesthetics and performance rather than actual power-building. They chase whatever is trending, constantly rebrand, and ultimately reinforce the #mainstreaming forces they claim to resist.

      Meanwhile, the right organizes, funds, and builds real infrastructure, they don’t waste time on purity politics and endless internal fights. That’s why they keep winning.

      So what do we do?

      • Stop trend-hopping, we need long-term strategies, not just momentary viral moments.
      • Build real alternatives, tech, media, organizing spaces that serve movements, not just “woke” branding.
      • Own our narratives, not get trapped in the spectacle of liberal discourse and right-wing outrage cycles.
      • Get our hands dirty, shovel through the #techshit, compost the failures, and grow something real.

      This is about taking control back, not only reacting to the crises the nasty few push us to manufacture. Radical media, the #openweb, grassroots organizing, these are the things that cut through the noise and shift power back to where it belongs.

      #KISS

      The #4opens act as a foundation to hold back the tide of the post-truth world, they enforce transparency, accountability, and community control. Without them, everything drifts into manipulation, closed power structures, and co-option by #dotcons.

      It’s a chicken-and-egg issue because we need social trust and active participation to maintain the #4opens, but those same values are constantly eroded by the #mainstreaming forces of the #deathcult.

      The #OMN is crucial because it builds digital commons as a form of social technology. It’s not just about the tech, it’s about the relationships, trust networks, and shared values that make it work. Once we have this space, what we do with it is up to us, but it has to be grounded in real, radical alternatives, not just another tech silo.

      That’s where the rebooted #indymedia project comes in. It’s built on the #PGA hallmarks, which means it’s explicitly anti-capitalist, decentralized, and activist-driven. It can’t function within the corporate media sphere, so it has to exist in a #TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone)—a liberated, self-organized space outside of state and market control.

      Wikipedia gives a decent artsy take on #TAZ, but in practice, it’s about creating spaces where radical alternatives can actually live and grow. #PGA is the backbone, an old grassroot global framework for direct action and real-world resistance.

      The key is building trust-based networks that aren’t easily co-opted. If we don’t do this, the cycle repeats: good projects get absorbed, neutralized, or just fade into irrelevance.

      Biography

      I’ve been part of the #Fediverse since its earliest days, helping to build it from the ground up. The #OMN ran five instances for the first four years, supporting communities as they explored decentralized social spaces. I’ve organized events, facilitated discussions, and continuously worked to nurture the Fediverse’s growth as a living example of what the #openweb can be. You can explore more about this journey here.

      My involvement in grassroots media and open technology stretches back to the birth of the web itself. I was part of the early internet experiments that challenged #mainstreaming narratives and built alternative channels for expression and connection. Projects like Undercurrents, the UK’s radical video collective, pushed past and back against corporate media control, documenting grassroots struggles and amplifying unheard voices for change and challenge.

      From there, we launched #Ruffcuts, distributing activist films on copyleft free to distribute CD-R’s long before YouTube or streaming platforms existed. Soon after, #Indymedia emerged as a global decentralized federated media network, proving that open publishing and collective moderation could empower movements worldwide. This work eventually evolved into #visionOntv, an early attempt to build a peer-to-peer video distribution network, harnessing the power of collective storytelling to counter the corporate narratives.

      After campaigning agonist climate change for 20 years I bought a lifeboat (an apt metaphor) to sail through Europe with #Boatingeurope, I connected with diverse communities, sharing media tools and spreading the message of #DIY media. These projects were all part of the same thread, a continuous push to create #DIY spaces where people can connect, collaborate, and tell their own stories without #mainstreaming gatekeepers.

      The history of the Fediverse carries valuable lessons from these past experiments: the tension between decentralization and fragmentation, the struggle to balance grassroots governance against the creeping influence of #mainstreaming commercialization, and the ongoing need to keep human connection and community at the centre of technology.

      By learning from the past, we cultivate a more resilient, cooperative, and truly #openweb path, one that resists the extractive logic of the #dotcons and embraces collective action and care. The path ahead isn’t easy, but the roots we’ve already planted run deep. Let’s keep growing, composting the mess, and building the future we need. 🌱

      What am I doing now?

      These aren’t pointless projects

      #mainstreaming #liberalism has lost its way. For the past 20 years, many self-described liberals have spewed out bilge water disguised as “common sense.” But when pressure mounts, they reveal themselves as dogmatic and intolerant, almost as if they aren’t truly liberal at all.

      How did we end up in this mess? The #deathcult, #stupidindividualism, and the rise of #dotcons shaped the dominant version of “common sense,” warping it away from collective care and into something narrow and self-destructive. It’s worth reflecting on this if we want to reclaim a liberal liberalism, rooted in genuine openness and social good.

      In practice, we can compost this mess by focusing on #nothingnew paths. Two longstanding cultural projects already embody this, working in non-federated ways for over a century. Now, we can add technical federation to the mix, building on 5+ years of #ActivityPub rollout.

      This gives us two powerful, #openweb-native paths forward:

      • Grassroots #DIY culture — Local, self-organized, and messy, but thriving outside corporate control.
      • Technical federation — Interconnected systems designed to distribute power and ownership.

      Both of these paths lead somewhere meaningful:

      These aren’t pointless projects, they’re a chance to break free from the suffocating grip of the #deathcult and build something resilient, human, and actually free.

      Shall we pick up the shovels and start composting? 🌱